In my experience leading platform teams in cross-functional environments, the shift from “pipeline firefighting” to “platform product thinking” was the real inflection point. Especially liked your distinction between building standard pathways vs solving shared pain points with specific new capabilities.
One thing I’d add: platform teams often underestimate how much “last-mile” friction users face, especially analysts and less technical stakeholders. We found that even when infrastructure was solid, adoption lagged until we invested in two things: (1) a simple internal UI built on top of our metadata layer for lineage tracing and (2) lightweight onboarding playbooks for common tasks (like setting up streaming ingestion or debugging dbt tests). Neither was technically complex, but both dramatically boosted perceived usability and trust.
Also agree strongly on the need for real software development inside the platform team. We started seeing real leverage only once we treated internal tooling (like provisioning workflows and data contracts) as first-class products with version control, feedback loops, and basic SLAs.
Curious if you’ve seen any success patterns around platform usability metrics? We’ve been experimenting with proxy measures like time-to-first-insight or number of manual Slack requests dropped over time, but it still feels more art than science.
Thanks Blanca, this is a really great comment and I appreciate you sharing your experiences.
You're absolutely right, that shift from pipeline firefighting to platform product thinking is a game changer. And I'm glad the distinction between standard pathways and building specific new capabilities resonated, it's a pattern I've seen be quite effective.
Your points on 'last mile' friction for users, especially analysts and less technical folks, are so important. It’s often those things that can make a huge difference to perceived usability and trust, even if the underlying infrastructure is solid. Those aren't always the most complex technical builds, but the impact on adoption can be massive
And yes, treating internal tooling like first class products is essential. That's where real leverage often comes from.
Your question about platform usability metrics is excellent and very timely. It's absolutely one of the critical perspectives we need to monitor closely as a platform team to understand if we're truly meeting user needs. It’s not just about uptime, it's about how easy and effective the platform is to use. I actually have a draft post brewing on this very topic, and your comment might just be the nudge I need to prioritize it 😊. It is indeed more art than science sometimes, but so important to try and quantify.
I'm glad to discuss with you here. I haven't been here for long, but I have learned much more than I have on other social software. However, I found that people here like to share writing, but very few people can keep in touch and communicate. It seems that everyone just treats this as a notebook.
In my experience leading platform teams in cross-functional environments, the shift from “pipeline firefighting” to “platform product thinking” was the real inflection point. Especially liked your distinction between building standard pathways vs solving shared pain points with specific new capabilities.
One thing I’d add: platform teams often underestimate how much “last-mile” friction users face, especially analysts and less technical stakeholders. We found that even when infrastructure was solid, adoption lagged until we invested in two things: (1) a simple internal UI built on top of our metadata layer for lineage tracing and (2) lightweight onboarding playbooks for common tasks (like setting up streaming ingestion or debugging dbt tests). Neither was technically complex, but both dramatically boosted perceived usability and trust.
Also agree strongly on the need for real software development inside the platform team. We started seeing real leverage only once we treated internal tooling (like provisioning workflows and data contracts) as first-class products with version control, feedback loops, and basic SLAs.
Curious if you’ve seen any success patterns around platform usability metrics? We’ve been experimenting with proxy measures like time-to-first-insight or number of manual Slack requests dropped over time, but it still feels more art than science.
Thanks Blanca, this is a really great comment and I appreciate you sharing your experiences.
You're absolutely right, that shift from pipeline firefighting to platform product thinking is a game changer. And I'm glad the distinction between standard pathways and building specific new capabilities resonated, it's a pattern I've seen be quite effective.
Your points on 'last mile' friction for users, especially analysts and less technical folks, are so important. It’s often those things that can make a huge difference to perceived usability and trust, even if the underlying infrastructure is solid. Those aren't always the most complex technical builds, but the impact on adoption can be massive
And yes, treating internal tooling like first class products is essential. That's where real leverage often comes from.
Your question about platform usability metrics is excellent and very timely. It's absolutely one of the critical perspectives we need to monitor closely as a platform team to understand if we're truly meeting user needs. It’s not just about uptime, it's about how easy and effective the platform is to use. I actually have a draft post brewing on this very topic, and your comment might just be the nudge I need to prioritize it 😊. It is indeed more art than science sometimes, but so important to try and quantify.
Thanks again for the thoughtful insights!
I'm glad to discuss with you here. I haven't been here for long, but I have learned much more than I have on other social software. However, I found that people here like to share writing, but very few people can keep in touch and communicate. It seems that everyone just treats this as a notebook.